


Starwaves

by Hyperius (Euregatto)



Category: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Dark Side Rey, Decapitation, Dismemberment, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Gray Kylo Ren, Hux doesn't get nearly enough pay to put up with this, M/M, Other, REWRITE OF PREVIOUS VERSION, Sith Rey, Slow Burn, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-22 05:09:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13159929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euregatto/pseuds/Hyperius
Summary: **Spoilers for TLJ**Rey and Kylo Ren collide and fall apart.What breaks between them is reborn, and Kylo Ren, gradually assuming both his identity as Ben Solo and his new position with the recovering Resistance, strives to rescue Rey from herself. Rey, with the guidance of General Hux and the archives of Snoke, sets down the path of darkness as the new rising leader of the First Order.But the war is reaching its final peak, and the battle for freedom is a blood bath fronted by casualties big and small...





	1. After Image

**Author's Note:**

> **revamp, rewrite of the original version I was working on before. I decided I was going elsewhere with the story and it was easier to revamp, edit, and repost than to go back and change everything. Also, character deaths.
> 
>  
> 
> [Ambience](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDx8gFJnYLc)  
> [Insp.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mkUp1V3ys0)

   

“I am half agony, half hope.”

\- Jane Austen  

   

   

* * *

**Rey & Ren**

* * *

She watches him watching her while the inertia of the Force bends around them like the gale of an oncoming storm. Their souls push and pull as the tide of an ocean tugs the shores of land into its arms, a balance between them that Rey had only recently become acutely aware of yet confidently synched with. To claim that Kylo Ren –  _“Ben,”_   she says and feels his spirit peak – was anything but the land is foolish.

Around them, the ship is collapsing. Between them, her lightsaber is breaking.

 _Stop this,_ he pleads, the strain is taxing their connection and the lightsaber and  _them_ , or everything that she has come to believe as  _them_ ; the splices of shared memories, the warmth of his fingers splayed out, reaching for the tips of her hand and with a sharp exhale they  _collide_.

Ocean waves rearing up and suspending at the pulse of the sky, mist settling in a forest high in the forgotten mountains, a sputtering vehicle hovering just out of reach of the desert’s heartbeat, a thick layer of frost on Stormtrooper armor, the blazing red fire of a bleeding crystal – these images flash between them in bursts of lightning and fury. They see her past, his future.

_Rey, stop. We can leave this all behind._

She pushes back. Her mind is tearing apart at the seams, her body is crippling under the gravity of their raw, innate power.  _The Resistance,_ she replies as if surprised,  _I can’t just –_

_It’s never too late._

_What are you-?_

Suddenly they’re being drawn together, two opposing ends of a magnet, or yin and yang, fitting perfectly into place like puzzle pieces. The saber remains out of reach and the pressure behind them conspires with the tension between them.  _Forget the First Order, forget the Resistance – our destinies are dust in the grand scheme of the universe._

_Ben…_

“Rey,” he utters and the lightsaber splits. Something breaks beyond their reality, pushing forth into their bond, weaving into the energy that laps outwards in hard pulses from the screaming crystal.

Kylo Ren feels the serenity that eases the weight of conflict on his soul. He remembers his father’s laugh, his mother’s hug, a scathing emerald sword, and debris lingering at the very edges of the memories. Rey’s voice prods him for the light that begins to seep from the wounds in his malice, ebbing into  _forgiveness_ , he thinks. Nights spent with her, with their hands, touching, just like that and nothing more and nothing less between them. Bliss, calamity, the balance – it infects his heart and his lightsaber howls but does not fight the oncoming repentance.

Rey’s spirit is twisted, constricted, the seed of darkness cracking outwards like the roots of a tree. A spider hangs upside down from its web and ensnares her arms, captures her screams. The spider is Luke Skywalker. The fire in her heart is the island, the crumbling temple, the forgotten verses and the unending rush of the Force. Her resolve is her parents, telling her softly, again and again, “To us you are nothing.” Ben is the torturous solitude in her chest, Kylo Ren is simple agony. The darkness is Finn, reaching out for her hand, and  _missing_.

The ship stutters. Rey recalls the sensation of falling. Kylo recalls the floor dropping out beneath him and embracing whatever comes next.

The rest is quiet.

   

   

* * *

**Finn**

* * *

Finn doesn’t want to open his eyes.

He had heard, only seconds prior, the sickening squelch of flesh and then the tumbling of a head across the floor, and seconds before that, Rose was screaming to him. At him. At the Stormtroopers and the stars and every ounce of matter in the universe.

Finn doesn’t want to open his eyes, but Phasma’s boot slams into his back and he  _chokes_. “ _Look_ ,” she hisses down at him, digging her heel into the small of his spine where his bones threaten to come undone beneath her strength. “Look at the results of your  _cowardice_ , FN-2187.”

Finn doesn’t want to open his eyes yet they snap open on their own accord. Rose is looking at him too, her unmoving expression mere inches from his nose. Her eyes are distant, glassed over with a milky hue. He doesn’t allow himself to peer any lower. He would find a clean slice, a gradual pool of blood.

A scream catches in Finn’s throat –

“Look at what you’ve  _done_.”

And then, the ship explodes.

   

    

* * *

  **Ren**

* * *

Kylo Ren awakens with a start.

His shoulder feels shattered, and when he compels himself onto his knees, the pain begins to diminish in every part of his body except his arm and, for a few minutes, his chest burns when he breaths too deeply. How long had he been unconscious? Minutes? Hours? His sense of time is off-kilter, the deep crevices of his bones ache from the force of the impact with the lower level floor.

Then he looks up, his gaze following the debris that falls like broken icicles, and finds the gorge in the throne room. He remembers, suddenly, everything beneath him had broken beneath his feet during the battle. Structural damage from their duel, no doubt; he could tell by the pitching of the ship, however, that there was something else tearing the rest of the fleet apart. But there was no way the Resistance was fighting back, not in their crippled condition –

_Rey._

He searches for her energy, prodding for an establishment of their connection. She isn’t responding. There’s no way to tell if she’s still on the ship with their connection severed. Kylo curses under his breath and pushes fully to his feet, leaning briefly against the wall for support as his equilibrium stabilizes. The ship pitches again. He would have to attempt to get back up to the throne room, or at the very least, would have to ready his ship for a quick escape.

_I’m not going anywhere without you, Rey._

That’s part of his ill-thought plan: grab a ship, grab Rey (if she’s still there, anyway), take them both far away from this war where she could berate him from the safety of the outer rim. He doesn’t have time to deduce  _why_  – why he cares for this scavenger girl so fiercely, why he’s willing to turn his back to the First Order and to an army that would well come to believe him as a god among men, why he can’t shake the feeling that something is Wrong with him. Prioritizing a method of escape is at the front of his mind regardless of his own doubts.

Kylo Ren’s body feels like it’s imitating lead, but he starts forward regardless, bearing through the acute jabs of pain below the frills of his lower ribs. His shoulder burns intensely. He drags himself down the corridors, lingering only momentarily to catch his breath when his chest tightens, when he feels that he’s losing consciousness again. Although the ship is burning, most of the passages he takes avoid both the fires and other Stormtroopers. If they were to see him like this, he’d have to kill them.

His TIE Silencer sits in the far landing bay when he finally makes it there. Most of the Stormtroopers appear to have been deployed into battle or to the other parts of the ship, leaving the bay entirely empty. The silencer is already deployed, the tassel laying uselessly off to one side, and whoever attempted to operate it is nowhere to be seen. Kylo gathers himself together and pulls himself inside. He checks its operations, its stats, its engines. According to the diagnostics, the weapons needs a reboot but it’s otherwise in perfect order.

The panels blink to life against his touch. He closes the hatch and settles into the pilot’s perch, and suddenly, behind him, the corridor explodes into fire. The explosion is intense enough that Kylo feels the silencer jolt. He glances at what was supposed to be his path back to Rey, now ruin and embers.

 _Fine,_ he tells himself, kicking the starship into gear. It lurches upwards into the air and hovers intently over the bay, pointing towards the energy fractal shield still protecting the rest of the landing bay from the vacuum of deep space.  _I’m coming, Rey._

He jettisons out of the landing bay and into the silence of the awaiting universe.

Kylo Ren doesn’t make it far before he finally gauges the level of damage to Snoke’s fleet. A rift tears the mothership nearly in complete two, not quite halves but this level of extensive destruction has already left the fleet in near ruin.  _Even ruin is enough to destroy the rest of the Resistance,_ Ren thinks, u-turning through a field of debris and towards Crait.

What did he care if the rebellion was stomped out like smoldering ash? He has no time to worry about their survival or their extinction, not when Rey still isn’t answering his attempts at linking with her.

A silver streak passes through his field of vision. The Millennium Falcon rockets along the graveyard of debris, expertly maneuvering around the dangers and the potential mines that could very well destroy the ancient craft. Under normal circumstances, Ren would be elated to anger by the memories of his father but again, at least right now, he can’t bring himself to focus on anything other than Rey.

_I’m going to regret this._

He hails the Falcon. The ship doesn’t answer the call right away, instead it steers into a 180 and faces him, hovering just outside the boundaries of the fleet. Although Ren anticipates a battle, the com line connects and a disgruntled Wookie accepts the call and begins  _ranting_. He quietly huffs. After an essay’s worth of deplorable threats and the abhorrent misuse of the term porgshit, Ren feels his exasperation sink in.

“Chewie,” he says, interrupting the rant. There’s a brief moment where neither of them says anything else, and Ren suspects that Chewbacca recognizes his voice. Of  _course_  Chewie recognizes his voice. Ren remembers, just this once, of a time when the Wookie held a child in his lap at a desk and showed him how to assemble a blaster.

All at once, the ranting starts up again, ebbing into howling and roaring and angry raving. Ren would roll his eyes, except he needs to keep focused. “Chewie, okay, I – can’t you – yes I know, stop it! Rey’s still on the ship.”

The Wookie goes quiet. He whines, says something else.

“I don’t know. I want you to help me save her.”

 _But how can I trust you?_ Chewie doesn’t say, even if Ren knows he wants to. He has every right to decline the offer and instigate a shoot out that he would most definitely  _win_ , especially with the TIE Silencer’s offensive systems on the fritz. There’s an agonizing second of lingering silence. Pondering, perhaps, the scale of risks and benefits.

Finally Chewie asks for some semblance of a plan.

“I won’t be able to redock,” Ren answers, glancing at the collapsing ship, “but as long as I can feel our connection, I’ll know that she is still alive.”

 _“How do we get to her?”_ Chewie asks.

“Perhaps we can’t,” he says, pitching his ship towards Crait. “If Rey is still where I last saw her, she should easily find her way to the escape ship. Wait for her here. Depart only once this fleet has become dust.”

Chewie is silent for a moment.  _“And what will you do?”_

Ren’s lips press together. He watches the fire, raging, raging like a primitive, powerful beast, devouring the mighty ship of the once equally mighty Supreme Leader Snoke. At this rate, his disappearance would go unnoticed for a few hours, and with any luck, Rey would be venturing to Crait by then.

“I will ensure the survival of the Resistance,” he decides. “She deserves that much.” So that would be his reasoning, then, to do anything and everything he can for the girl who opened his heart to the light all over again. He's uncertain if the First Order should be damned, and he thinks he still wants to convince her that starting a new government would be their best play - but it isn't time for these thoughts. Not now.

It doesn’t matter whether Chewie believes in Kylo Ren's word. Either way, Ren takes off towards the Resistance base, and the Millennium Falcon doesn’t follow.

     

   

* * *

  **Leia**

* * *

Leia Organa waits. The salt flats of Crait offer her a clear and undaunted view of everything from the east horizon to the west descension. She suspects that the First Order would be here soon, anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, or a few days if they wanted to ensure their victory, and at the very least she would see them approaching. Their battle is reaching its final climax, she can sense it like it's a promise from the Force.

Something shifts in the air around her.

Leia feels what is unmistakably her  _son_ , prodding her mind for the tendrils of a connection, and for a moment she almost believes it to be her own body playing tricks, hoping beyond hope – and then she sees the TIE Silencer, churning through the sky just over the trenches. Poe Dameron sees it too, perhaps before she does; he shouts his orders to the front row of Resistance fighters and they take up their arms, swarming towards the gate.

“Wait,” Leia says, taking Poe by his elbow. “Stay ready, but don’t fire until I give the command.”

He nods, stepping away to join the head of the formation. The soldiers watch, intensely focused on the Silencer as it lands several yards away from Leia’s perch. The hatch drops.

Tension settles over each of them and when Kylo Ren appears, that tension rapidly escalates to the point of breaching. He has a limp to his step, a scar on his face that Leia distinctly remembers him not possessing before.

No one moves, breathes, blinks. Ren approaches, his stride pained but his expression without emotion. Leia says nothing. She gives no commands, no orders, no sound or warning. But she tunes into the connection that Ren sends her, feeling his agony and his pain, feeling the heat of his memories and the shame of being in her presence.

“Ben,” she says when he’s only several paces away, and he stops.

Kylo Ren watches the Resistance watching him, unbreathing.

Leia strides towards her son, her confidence in every step, her head held high with pride. Unbroken. Ren allows her to approach. He is unmoving, stock as a statue, until she’s toe-to-toe with him and her lips are pursed and then  _SMACK –_

She hits him with an open palm as quick and as lethal as a venomous serpent. Ren absorbs the brunt of the pain, his cheek almost instantly swelling red in the form of a handprint, but he does nothing in retaliation. For once, even his anger is sedated. There’s another moment of quiet and a moment of clarity between them.

“Mercy,” he says. He deserved that, though.

Leia pulls him against her, her arms tight around his back as if she’ll let go and lose him all over again. “Welcome home,” she whispers to him. “Welcome home, Ben Solo.”

He leans into her embrace.  

    

   

* * *

**Hux**

* * *

_"Do you feel it, General?”_

_The throne room of Supreme Leader Snoke is spacious and unburdened by the luxury of interior decorating, and yet Armitage Hux often finds it difficult to breathe. To admit this, however, would only provoke Snoke's already thin patience with his general. A sign of weakness where there is room for none. Hux steels himself, hands folded cordially behind his back. “What am I supposed to feel, Supreme Leader?”_

_“Of course not,” Snoke says then, almost to himself. “You are aware of the conflict in Kylo Ren's soul."_

_"I am," Hux answers. He treads carefully with his next words, "I have previously expressed my concerns that he is unfit for the path of darkness."_

_Snoke seems to take that into consideration and sits upright, attentive. "The light pulls my apprentice away, as I knew it would...yet I have seen their futures. Kylo Ren will become little more than an inconvenience, should he choose to open his heart to her." There is a moment of pause, and Hux can almost feel the words what a shame suspended at the apex of Snoke's throat. "But the girl…yes. She will turn.”_

_Hux bristles with contempt. To him, the Jedi are emotional time bombs on legs, and he's already had quite enough of Kylo Ren. “What will you do, Supreme Leader?”_

_“She will need guidance, of course…" He closes his eyes, briefly, sensing the movement of the Force in every particle around him. Something is amiss in the universe. "Whenever I peer into her future I cannot see myself. I see little more than my hands upon her shoulders" - he reaches out, grasping empty air - "and the rest is but the smoke of a dying fire.”_

_Hux furrows his brow. “Supreme Leader?”_

_“You," Snoke amends, gesturing to his general. "It is_ you _I see in her future, and not me – you are the shadow on the wall, the whisper in the girl’s head. Do you understand what I am telling you, General Hux?”_

 _Hux hesitates. He's teetering at the edge of perplexity and calamity, the exasperation and the rage building in the pit of his chest. “I understand, sir, but I am not a Jedi, nor am I sensitive with the Force. How can I hope to possibly teach this girl_ anything _without your proper guidance?”_

_Snoke raises his hand, silencing his concerns. “The training she seeks is not something that can be taught by Jedis. To understand the Force, and to utilize the Force, are two very different lessons indeed. Have I made myself clear?"_

_"Yes," Hux answers through his teeth._

_"She will make her decision, you will accept it. This will be your final mission as General of the First Order, and if you do not tread carefully, it will also be your untimely downfall.”_

_Hux bows politely so Snoke doesn't have to see the agitation setting into his General's features. “If that is what you will have me do, Supreme Leader...I will obey.”_

Hux blinks down at the severed corpse of Leader Snoke as his legs slip from the throne and splat against the floor. The memory resounds through his mind like an ominous threnody. His gaze turns to the fallen remains of the once respectable Elite Praetorian Guards. He can see where they were felled, one by one, wounds and holes and slices burned through limbs and crimson armor. He doubted Rey could have handled them all herself, so he safely assumes that Kylo Ren helped - _turned_ , as Snoke said he would.

Hux looks down at the unconscious girl, and then the two separated halves of a once mighty lightsaber. A smirk pulls at his lips. Then his expression hardens.

Snoke was the First Order's devout and omnipotent leader but this _Rey of Hope_ , as he had once called her by, was a decision baffling beyond words. Surely Kylo Ren, an outcast who never truly aligned himself with the First Order and became his master's ultimate demise, would have been proof of failure enough? Every part of Hux's innate capacity for leadership screams to him, _put a bullet in her head and be done with this already. These children will be the end of everything_.

He's always equated children with harbingers of death.

"So what's so special about you?" he asks her unmoving body, and the only answer he receives is Rey's pained groan as she regains consciousness.

  

* * *

**Finn**

* * *

Finn jolts into consciousness, thrown momentarily into a blind panic by the screams tearing their way out of Rose’s throat. He realizes quickly that the ship is an inferno around him. The intense heat that engorges the landing bay reminds him of the burning surface of a sun and he pushes up to his feet, seeking out Rose’s body amongst the fray. He finds her torso, at least – reaches into her pocket and fishes out her necklace. Grieving would have to wait.

(Blaming himself would have to wait.)

Finn pockets the pendant and turns, searching for a way off the landing bay. Ahead of him is an escape shuttle, behind him is a wall of fire. The heavy sonance of boots, stomping across the platform, jostles him and he whirls around to face the remaining line of Stormtroopers passing through the fire like it was of little hindrance. Phasma’s glare is lethal, even through the tempered metal of her helmet.

Panic rises in his chest. Finn glances around, seeking out weapons among his fallen troopers, and settles for the Z6 Riot Control Baton half a yard away. He goes for it, scooping it up.

“FN-2187,” Phasma says, signaling for the Stormtroopers to raise their weapons at him in synch, “prepare for your execution.”

He grits his teeth, counting them out. The baton could deflect several of their shots but it was only a matter of time before the bullets outnumbered his attempts at blocking it all.

Phasma grunts. “Kill him.”

Heavy laser fire sails over Finn’s head and impacts the line of soldiers. The Stormtroopers are plowed through relentlessly, even though the bullets ricochet off Phasma’s thoroughly fortified armor. Finn looks back at the AT-ST lurching forward from its dock. The helm rips backwards against the lock, revealing BB-8 who beeps and chirps something Finn hardly understands.

“BB-8?” he wonders aloud, and then grins, raising his hands in triumph. “Way to go, BB-8!”

Phasma strikes Finn with a kick that could shatter rock if she placed it just right, sending him sprawling to the floor. He rolls up to his knees and then his feet, activating the baton in time to deflect another one of her hits. She strikes with her staff but the baton is wider, heavier, helping Finn navigate and block what would have otherwise been a weapon too quick and lethal for his level of melee capabilities.

Their weapons collide, metal on metal, the electricity of the baton hissing with stress. Phasma locks her pikestaff into the notch of the baton and twists, throwing Finn’s arms down. She strikes the exposed side of his face with the blunt edge of the staff. He cries out and stumbles back, clutching at his injury as if pressure would relieve the acute flare of pain. Phasma side-steps towards him and with a solid turning kick, Finn finds himself reacquainted with the floor. His ribs burn intensely from the force of the blow.

“You’re pathetic,” Phasma seethes. “You had the audacity to betray your brothers, and now you squander what little freedom you have left on dwindling rebel  _scum_?”

Finn’s lip is split from her staff. He spits blood from his mouth to the floor at her feet, forcing himself to stand again. Around them the ship is burning, between them the fire is reflected in Phasma’s metallic armor. The riot baton is twirled back into position.

Phasma scoffs, unimpressed with his courage. “At least you put up a fight at the very end,” she tells him, gesturing to Rose’s corpse. “Fortunately, I can’t say the same for your decapitated friend.”

“That's _it_ ,” Finn snaps back, rushing forward to meet her in combat again. Phasma blocks his attack with her pike and pushes him back, lashing the blade outwards, only to be met with the fortified neck of the baton. The stun at the end of the weapon doesn’t force her back as he had hoped it would, but it deflects her staff with ease.

Finn parries another strike. Phasma is unforgiving and cruel with her movements and her momentum and her dire, relentless  _need_  to end the traitorous Stormtrooper she would have trained herself had he shown any true potential. She hammers the staff upon him, again and again and again despite being blocked by the baton, nearly forcing Finn to his knees by sheer strength alone.

He knocks aside her next strike, spinning into the blow and lashing out. The baton slams into Phasma’s chest. She slides back, digging the balls of her feet into the floor to slow her progression.

“You’re getting on my last nerve, FN-2187,” she snarls, taking a step forward. There’s a sharp crack that resounds. She halts, her gaze on him only briefly before she turns it down to the floor below her feet. Then her attention finds him again.

The floor collapses at the rate of falling dominoes.

Finn sprints forward and dives as she falls, catching her hand in his. The combined weight of her body and her armor is undeniable, and it almost rips his arm right out of its socket; he screams, huffs, struggling to keep his grip.

Below them is a raging fire, levels of damaged infrastructure and waves of heat and ruin.

Phasma is looking up at him as if pondering something beyond his understanding. For a moment there is only this between them, a strange matter of bait and bite. She doesn’t comprehend his thinking, she doesn’t know if he  _is_  thinking.

“FN-2187,” she says, leaning back with all her might so his grasp on her slips right out, “you’re all  _scum_.”

And she descends into the maw of Hell.

    

    

* * *

**Rey**

* * *

Rey awakens to the last person she thought she would ever see in her life – General Armitage Hux, his disconcerting glare glimpsing her over as if in thought. For a moment she considers cleaving him in half with her lightsaber as Ren had done with Snoke, but just as quickly, the events of the throne room battle flood back into her mind.

She jumps to her feet with a start, willing the two halves of her lightsaber into her hands from their opposite ends of the room. “No, nonono,” she whimpers, trying and failing to jam them back together, as if  _that_  would magically heal the damage. The kyber crystal pulses like an exposed artery after each failed attempt. She feels the constriction in her chest, a strange, closed-off seal on her soul like a lid. Something within her was damaged with the lightsaber, but right now, and not for the life of her, can Rey figure out what  _exactly_  it is.

Hux watches her with an air of amusement, and then turns his attention to the crater in the floor. “I don’t suppose this is where Kylo Ren fell through?” he says suggestively, his hands folded taut behind his back. “Maybe he went off to die. This whole ship is falling apart, and more than structurally, it seems.”

Rey gives him a sinister glare in response. “Cork it, you  _snake_.”

Hux scoffs, turning on his heel towards the door. Behind him are the pieces of Snoke, unceremoniously scattered across the throne and bloated by death. “You should take this opportunity to return to your petty Resistance,” he tells her with an air of command. “My army and I will be converging upon you soon to snuff out what remains.”

Rey parts her lips to reply, but then slowly, retracts her statement.  _Let go of the past,_ Ren’s voice rings into her mind, as loud as a brass bell,  _kill it, if you must. Our destinies are dust in the grand scheme of the universe._

“You’re letting me go?”

“I can’t stop you,” he replies, making no move for his gun. Making a point. There's something almost off-putting by the level of casual deflection in Hux's voice and posture, as if he knows she won't bother trying to kill him. She would succeed, of course. And this was her chance -

_You are nothing. You have no place in this story._

Rey clenches her fists together, feeling the crystal crying, and she thinks she can hear the final wisdom of her parents replaying in her mind.  _We are scavengers, Rey, nothing to the cosmos and we’ll never be anything but dust – so you must learn to do as spiders do._

“Suppose I don’t want to?” she asks him next, watching for a shift in his tension.

Hux’s lip curls in disgust. “Foolish girl. Do you plan to replace Kylo Ren, is that it? We have no need for someone like  _you_. You can’t run an army, you have little knowledge of our system, you can’t fully control your power,  _and_  you have no proper training! It’s disgraceful at best and downright  _insulting_  to our order.”

  

_And what is it that spiders do, Rey?_

“So teach me,” she says. Her crystal, trapped between her anger and her control,  _cracks_  under the Force of her power and begins to bleed and to weep. Hux looks at her like she’s just given him a plausible lecture on the creation of the universe.

  

_They take everything they can, and kill the rest._

General Hux finally nods, perhaps to shut her up, perhaps because he knows there is no changing her mind. Rey think she'll receive more answers from him in due time. “Then come with me,” he says compliantly, trekking towards the door. “We have a Resistance to destroy, and there is much that you must learn if you wish to assume a role in our ranks.”

Rey follows him to her future, and her past is abandoned on the throne of Snoke.

   

  


	2. The Beginning of the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux, Rey, Ben - a train wreck in the making.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thank you for all the feedback so far! You guys are the absolute best.

 

* * *

**Rey**

* * *

 

Rey delves into the heart of the First Order, keeping at General Hux’s side as they locate one of the few remaining shuttles and escape to the undamaged Star Destroyer behind the crumbling remainders of Snoke’s ship. Although the forward fleet is all but eradicated, Hux assures her that their latter troops are undaunted in the face of casualties.

The landing bay is hectic. Several medics cart injured Stormtroopers to the med bay, other troops assemble around TIE fighters and supplies. Hux takes both halves of Rey’s broken lightsaber from her belt and hands it to a Stormtrooper lieutenant. “Have this repaired,” he orders.

Rey wonders if they used to repair Ben’s lightsaber. Then Hux says something quieter that she doesn’t hear.

Eventually he walks away and she follows him to the nearest lift. They traverse a handful of different corridors, silent, neither speaking except for when Hux addresses personnel in his path, and Rey has her gaze averted to his back, as if in thought. The trek has made her slightly disoriented. There’s no telling just how far in they’ve navigated – Hux obviously knows, but she doesn’t have the heart to imply her ignorance.

Gradually, she manages to bring herself back to her senses. “Where are we going?” she asks him.

“To the greenroom.”

“Why?”

They pass through the threshold of the biodome, and Hux is saluted by the Stormtroopers patrolling the wing. Botanists litter every level of the artificial biosphere, taking notes on plants that are both unfamiliar and exotic, at least to Rey – she thinks she’ll never quite adjust to seeing this much green, not after spending almost her entire life in the blazing deserts of Jakku.

They draw up to a wall of incubation chambers. Hux’s eyes fixate. “Girl,” he says without looking at her, and she furrows her brow.

“I would prefer if you addressed me by my name, General.”

“Like everyone here, you must earn that right.” He waits for her snippy response, but receives none. “Listen carefully to my words. There is no turning back. I am giving you one opportunity to succeed where all your predecessors have worn my patience thin and then _failed_. Do you understand me?”

She nods, waiting. Anticipating. She wants to connect with his thoughts but he’s entirely closed off.

“I don’t know what your masters may have told you, but my first lesson starts from scratch,” he says, and he reaches into a chamber, pulling out a small potted plant akin to a crimson fern. He sets it on the slab between them. “This is _arbus sarmonium_ , once used to create a venomous neurotoxin in bioweapons. It’s since become extinct on its home world, but here we have been growing it so that its species may survive.”

“It’s quite beautiful,” Rey says, reaching down to caress a petal with the tip of her finger.

“Kill it then, however you like.”

Rey looks downright offended by his order. “You want me to kill the plant you just said is _extinct?”_

Hux folds his hands behind his back. “Nature, dear girl, is an untamed, benevolent force. It is a destruction to its very self.” He gestures to the plant with a firm nod. “It grows and grows without worry, but its ecosystem cannot often sustain itself without the balance of creatures to eat its roots or their decaying corpses to supply the water with minerals. Life and destruction are necessary to keep either other in balance. Extinction, and therefore creation, are inevitable.”

After another moment to digest his words, Rey reluctantly utilizes her control over the Force. The fern is gently lifted from the soil, its stringy roots grasping uselessly to little pockets of dirt and undigested minerals. And then violently, its body is ripped to shreds, suspended in small segments like the air is water.

“Good,” Hux says with a hint of pride in his voice, although his expression remains stern. “The First Order believes the galaxy to be the pot, the systems its soil, and life is the plant. Thus, we believe ourselves to be the Great Destroyers, those who cannot simply trim the plant, but must instead kill it at its roots before the danger grows out of our control.”

“Why are you telling me this?” she asks, dropping the pieces. “I’m fully aware of the balance.”

“But you are not fully aware of what the First Order stands for.” Hux lifts his hand to her and when his fingers splay open she sees tiny red-shelled seeds in his palm. “The final mission ever thrust upon me was by our Leader Snoke, to teach you the ways of something no Jedi could understand.”

“And what’s that?” Rey asks him curiously.

“Necessity has no equal, and no ruler.” The seeds cascade from his hand into the upturned soil and he smooths the dirt over them. “That is why we must keep the _order_.”

Rey watches him relocate the pot to the chamber and then seal it.

“We’re done here,” he says, exiting the room and as she follows, she feels something _pulling_.

“Ben…”

Hux turns on his heel, alarmed. “What?”

“It’s Ben.” She hesitates, reaching out for the tendrils of the connection, and allows it to forge.

   

  

* * *

**Ben**

* * *

 

“The Falcon approaches,” Leia announces, her voice reverberating through the base like a melancholic hymn.

Her son Ben Solo, a battle-scarred nightmare once revered as _Kylo Ren_ , is reclined in a chair in the far back of the hideout when he hears her call. His shoulder had been dislocated from his fallout with Rey, but with help from an overtly eager Poe Dameron and a belt that tasted akin to oil, his arm was successfully _snapped_ back into place. The medic assures him that he’ll heal properly with time, but for now he has his arm uselessly wound in a makeshift sling to ease the pain.

Ben rises from his seat and traverses the length of the base, gradually stepping up to his mother’s side. As he does, the Millennium Falcon descends from the sky and lands pliantly at the foot of the base. Poe walks up to Leia’s other side, a cautious smirk pulling at his lips.

 _Rey,_ Ben thinks hopefully, his breath caught in anticipation in his chest.

The hatch drops down. Finn rushes down the steps, BB-8 on his heels, and Poe sprints out to meet them. The men embrace like the collision of rain on pavement, nearly tipping themselves into the trenches. BB-8 chirps and rocks back and forth. When they finally part long enough to breathe, Poe gives his astromech a hug of its own and it beeps.

Finn’s glare is suddenly on Ben. Poe notices, leans towards him and says _something_ – whatever it is, Finn’s expression softens, just enough that Ben knows he won’t have his caf poisoned in the morning.

Chewie emerges from the Falcon and Ben waits to see Rey, standing tall like a pillar of light, following the Wookie’s footsteps. She doesn’t. He waits longer, part of him prodding desperately for a connection, and she still doesn’t appear.

Eventually the group returns to the base.

“Where’s Rey?” Ben asks Chewie, who snarls back.

“Chewie told me what happened,” Finn says, but it’s unclear if he’s referring to Ben and Chewie’s awkward alliance or everything else. “We waited for her, as long as we could – but there’s almost nothing left to the forward fleet. She _has_ to be elsewhere.”

Leia sighs, her gaze on the vast expanse of the cold and brittle terrain of Crait. Chewie looks at Ben and suggests something.

“A bond?” the general echoes, intrigued. She glances at her son hopefully. “You and Rey are bonded through the Force, then?”

Finn looks mildly disturbed, to say the least. “Hold on, _what_?”

“Can you sense her?” Leia insists.

Ben averts his eyes to the sky. “I can try.”

He inhales, finds his focus. Rey’s light ebbs and flows against the tides of the cosmos, and beneath his feet he feels the pulse of the earth, the mist careening through the sky, the vulptex shifting through the crystalized salt ravines. Then upwards, to Rey’s mind – but her balance is off, muted, a silent window gazing in. Everything about her sends up a red flag. Something is Wrong.

“Rey,” he whispers, his call like a shotgun in the quiet. Finally, he feels her tugging at the tendrils of their connection. “Rey, I can’t see you.”

_“Ben…”_

“Where are you?”

 _“Where are you?”_ she echoes his question, their bond thrumming, as if unstable. _“I awoke in the throne room and you weren’t there.”_

“I’m with the Resistance.” He doesn’t clarify what he means by that, exactly. He focuses on her, intently and intensely. “Are you hurt?”

_“No…only some bruises. Ben, give me your hand, I need to see you.”_

He gradually raises his fingers to the air. The delicate pads of her fingertips touch his and the very chill around them is sucked into his chest. When Ben blinks she’s there. He hears Finn, crying out to her, and Leia, shushing him – Rey doesn’t seem to notice. “Can you see my surroundings?” he asks, testing the waters. “I still can’t see yours.”

“Only you.” Her gaze diverts left, right. Seeking. Her fingers entwine with his and the connection amplifies. “I can feel Leia, Chewie...and Finn. Are they with you?”

“Yes. Are you safe?”

“I am.” She falters, and her gaze flickers briefly over his shoulder. Ben seeks out a familiar presence from her side of the bond – he invokes the image of a man, beaten into submission by a cruel and devising leader, holding his head with pride, his hair like licks of flames.

Ben swallows the rock in his throat, his stomach curls. “Rey,” he starts, his tone weary, “why is Hux with you?”

A tear glides down Rey’s cheek. She projects to him the image of a crimson fern, wilting in dry soil. The island, the mirror, touching her reflection and pleading for her past to align.

Ben’s heart hammers against the cage of his chest. “Rey.” His voice is a whisper, a desperate prayer. “This isn't the path you want. Don’t do this.”

“What does it matter if I do?” she tells him bitterly, releasing her grasp on his hand. All at once the unbidden tension between them rends open and Ben can see a shadow, its claws sunk into Rey’s shoulders. “Let go of the past! Kill it, if you must! Our destinies are _dust_ in the grand scheme of the universe!” She _shoves_ him. “Those are _your_ words, Kylo Ren!” Shoves him again, forcing him back another step.

He can do little more than look at her, bewildered. Her eyes are void of light, consumed by rage and isolation and bereavement. A conflict.

“Rey,” he starts, feeling the agony in the Force connecting them, “no, Rey…what did he tell you?”

“Weakness is not in the nature of the order. And _you_ , Ben Solo”—she raises her finger to him, jabbing him once in the chest, right at his heart—“are _weak_. You’ve always been weak. Your parents abandoned you because you were weak _,_  Luke tried to murder you because you were weak, you lost me because you’re _weak!_ I am no longer _nothing_ , I am not _weak_ , and I will forge my own story.”

Ben’s side of the connection recoils, afraid of her touch, but his expression has hardened. He can feel the room returning to him – the apprehensive quiet, his mother’s guilt, Finn’s hurt. Rey’s tears are gliding down her cheeks and everything about her is downright _terrifying_.

“You,” she continues, unhinged, all semblance of the girl she used to be ebbing as the darkness consumes her whole, “and the rest of your Resistance, are going to _die_ , Ben Solo. I will _ensure_ that much.”

And then she’s gone. The connection is rejected with such malice Ben feels a kickback, stumbling in place, his mind on fire. Leia is suddenly at his side, her hands stabilizing him, her Force like a gentle breeze that eases his nerves.

“What just happened?” Poe asks, clearly confounded by the entire scene that just played out with the success of a train wreck.

Finn collapses against a shipping container, the closest thing to a chair he can get, and tucks his head between his knees. Every part of him wants to throw up. Every other part of him feels like it’s coming undone at the seams and Rose’s head rolls across his vision.

Poe kneels, his hands finding the back of Finn’s neck and guiding them together. “Buddy, hey. It’s alright. Deep breaths.”

“I’m losing everything,” he says into Poe’s shoulder, and the pain wells up inside of him. His tears soak the pilot’s shirt.

“She’s not lost,” Ben says. He holds the lightsaber close to his chest, the way he had seen Rey do once, the kyber crystal stagnant against his heart – and something within it begins to amend. His resolve is undeterred. “The darkness has its claws in Rey. I plan to bring her back with me this time.”

“No,” Leia tells him, her hands on his. “No, Ben, please. _Please_. I need you here, with us.”

“Now you want me around,” he seethes out, the old wounds of his past flayed open on the pedestal of their imminent defeat. “But where were you when I needed you most, when I needed my _mother?"_  He grits his teeth, watching her eyes for an emotional opening. "You didn't want anything to do with me.”

“No, Ben, that's not-”

He snaps his wrist away from her grip. “I’m doing this for Rey, not for you. _Never_ for someone like _you_.”

He storms off into the rear of the base, perhaps to brood or to gather supplies for the oncoming battle. Chewie mumbles, but Leia shakes her head. “Leave him be; he'll come around." Then she faces the ex-Stormtrooper. "Finn, go with Chewie. We need you two on air support from the Falcon.”

Finn gathers himself together. Poe holds him perhaps for half a minute too long, just enough that maybe Leia becomes convinced of a deeper meaning, but Finn gradually pulls away and stands. He gives them one final nod before following Chewie to the Falcon.

“And what will you have us do?” Poe asks, turning to face his general.

Leia’s gaze becomes familiar with the horizon. “Now…we go to war.”

     

  

* * *

**Hux**

* * *

 

Hux isn’t quite sure how to digest the scene he just witnessed. Rey is desperately trying to wipe away her tears with the backs of her sleeves, and the only thought on his mind is, _I’ll have to be careful with this one._ He supposes having her executed would save him the headache of personal training – the stress of dealing with another emotionally unstable child, included – yet she had rejected her own allies as if they had never meant anything at all. Surely that means something to him, to the First Order’s agenda?

_I’ll have to be quite careful._

“Come,” he says. “Stop being emotional, the First Order has an image to keep.”

Rey collects herself with a nod and he starts down the corridor. It takes a better part of their walk, but she calms down enough that when they reach the weapons ward, Hux is no longer worried than she’ll explode into fire and fury (or perhaps this is a practice from Kylo Ren’s time, and given enough leeway, he’ll come to anticipate a calmer reaction).

He shows her to the production tables where engineers are crafting and jimmying together prototype melee weapons.

“I was raised as a generous man,” he tells her. “Leader Snoke took without thanks, Kylo Ren gave without expectance. Like them, you can have whatever you want.” She lifts her eyebrows at him. “Within reason, of course. Kylo Ren was always keen on testing prototypes with the Stormtroopers, even though his lack of emotional stability led to their sufficient bodily harm. Should you decide that a weapon doesn’t work for you, we can upgrade it at your whim.”

The Stormtrooper lieutenant from earlier sees Hux across the bay and marches up to them, presenting them with what looks to be a brand-new lightsaber build.

Hux accepts it and dismisses the trooper, and then hands it to Rey. “See how this works for you.”

“My lightsaber?” she asks incredulously. “You had it fixed?”

“Consider it a gift.”

She turns it over in her hands. It possesses three prongs on each end, bent inwards towards where the energy would expel. A quarterstaff-style. Rey activates the saber, crimson blades rushing out of either end, and then twirls it, testing its weight. From what Hux can tell, judging only by the way she swings it so effortlessly, it’s significantly lighter than the junk staff she had salvaged together for protection on Jakku.

“That was based on one of our prototype combat staffs,” he tells her. “The model never saw use, but it upgraded from the current models of our pikestaffs. The base is reinforced with synthetic titanium that can withstand most forms of concurrent energy, such as the energy from your kyber crystal – girl, are you listening to me?”

Rey swings the staff in her hands, slicing cleanly through the air. She’s exhilarated by how unbelievably natural it feels, swifter and stronger than the previous lightsaber she wielded. The crimson energy hums and sings. At the very least, quite contrary to Ren, her energy is stable.

Hux presses his lips together. _Snoke give me strength._

“Thank you,” she says like a child who’s just been given a gift, deactivating the weapon.

Hux doesn’t quite know what to say to that. He deems her foolish, perhaps, another emotional disaster destined to fail as Kylo Ren before her. _But there must be something in your future, girl – something Snoke saw, something I’m missing?_

“General Hux!” A Stormtrooper calls out, approaching them swiftly and saluting.

“Report.”

“We’re approaching the Resistance Base, sir.”

“Prepare for deployment,” he orders, and then turns to Rey. “We’re going to snuff out the rest of your friends. Are you up to the task?”

Rey clutches the lightsaber to her chest. The war is rushing at her, behaving like time, relentless and forever with purpose. She was standing in the heart of the throne room of the once malevolent and mystifying Snoke, and her intentions were to save Kylo Ren – to save the Resistance, to protect the light.

Hux sees her uncertainty and huffs. “Prove yourself to me, or don’t. Either way, the Rebels are doomed to die.”

Rey looks up at him, stunned. “You aren’t going to _order_ me into battle, General?”

“I have seen the dangers of a split soul,” he tells her sternly; she knows he’s referring to Ren, “and should you sustain damage, you will become little better than a liability. Unlike Snoke, I will _not_ allow the personal endeavors of children persuade the First Order’s purpose.”

“Then I’ll fight.”

“Excuse me?”

Rey plants herself before him like a statue with her head held with determination, resolve. “Then I’ll fight,” she says again. “Snoke’s pride created Kylo Ren, but Snoke’s pride is what got him killed. Kylo Ren has nothing left; his spirit is broken and his ego has driven him straight into the ground. I have no conflictions with my past nor will I allow myself to falter as they did. This battle _will_ be ours.”

Hux glimpses her once over. “You’re going to need something more… _fitting_ , then.”

“General Hux, fetch me a uniform.”

And he grins. “Yes, ma’am.”

   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: The battle begins, a little bit of Reylo, and the Skywalker family continues to be dramatic. Luke, Finn, Ben, Rey, probably Poe.


End file.
